Doubts cast on superstar woodpecker's return

newscientist ^ | 13 March 2006 | Bob Holmes

[S0122017]

Doubts cast on superstar woodpecker's return 12:36 13 March 2006 NewScientist.com news service Bob Holmes

The apparent rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in 2005 – hailed as one of the great conservation triumphs of recent times – may be merely a case of mistaken identity, according to a new study.

In April 2005, researchers led by John Fitzpatrick at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, announced in the journal Science that the woodpecker, believed extinct for 60 years, had been seen alive in the swamps of eastern Arkansas, US. And they had a video of the bird to back their story.

The bird's seemingly miraculous survival for many decades caused a stir among conservationists worldwide, and the US government moved quickly to appoint a recovery team and commit more than $10 million to try to rescue the species.

But as the first frenzy of excitement subsides, many ornithologists are now coming forward to say they are not convinced by the evidence behind the supposed rediscovery.

"When I first heard the news, I was really excited," says Michael Patten, director of research at the University of Oklahoma's Sutton Avian Research Center in Bartlesville, US. "I went right to Science's website, and I was crestfallen. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. This is all they have’. I wanted them to be right, but it was pretty apparent right away that they sure don't have much here."

Frame by frame The problem is that the video – still the best evidence of the woodpecker's existence – contains no more than a blurry, four-and-a-half-second glimpse of a distant bird as it takes off from a tree and flies away into the forest. See the video here (.mov format).

Fitzpatrick's team has painstakingly examined the footage frame by frame, and they remain convinced it shows enough detail to prove that the bird is an ivory-billed woodpecker and not a pileated woodpecker, the only other woodpecker of similar size and appearance.

In particular, the researchers point to the pattern of white markings on the wings and body, the size of the bird and shape of its wings, and its rapid wingbeats. (See the detailed analysis.)

Flashes of white But sceptics challenge the Cornell team's interpretations on each of these points. A pileated woodpecker – either a normal one or a rare piebald form with more white feathers showing – could have shown similar flashes of white in flight, says Jerome Jackson, an ornithologist at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, US, and one of the world's leading experts on the ivory-billed woodpecker.

And the ivory-billed woodpecker is only a few centimetres larger than the pileated one, he says. "That's about the difference between a yardstick and a metre stick," Jackson notes. "At 100 yards, could you tell the difference between a yardstick and a metre stick? It just doesn't make sense to say it was much larger than a pileated woodpecker." Jackson published his criticisms in January in the ornithological journal The Auk (vol 123, p 1).

But if there really are ivory-billed woodpeckers in the Arkansas woods, critics say, should searchers not have seen another by now? "They might not be visible on two or three trips or 50 hours of observation," says Jackson. "But now we're talking about thousands of hours by the Cornell people alone. In my opinion, we should have had something by now."

Journal reference: The Auk (vol 123, p 1)

[GreenFreeper]

I was being sarcastic by the way :)

[Jaysun]

Life without the ivory-billed woodpecker has been miserable at best. Then, just when there seems to be a glimmer of hope for mankind, we get kicked in the groin. What will I tell my kids, my wife?

[Oztrich Boy]

Woodpeckers have teeth?

[Cold Heat]

Dam??? Farmers???

I don't think you have a clue what you are talking about.

This was no BS...

The video was shot by some Arkansas forestry people. many sightings have been reported but this was the first evidence.

The only reason for the interests is that the bird was thought to be extinct, in spite of reported sightings by fishermen and hunters. The location is North Central Arkansas on a refuge. There is no political goat roapin going on. This is not Washington State or Klamath. There is no money or what ever you have dreamed up. It was reported to gain public interest and get more information out in the public on bird.

Sightings are often confused with other varieties of woodpeckers because the public does not know what to look for.

Any BS that ever develops out of it is unintended consequences of a effort by the Arkansas Forestry Dept. They wanted people to look at the footage and invited comment.

[midwyf]

I was wrong about it being a dam, it is a canal to send water to farmers raising rice. Twice the TNC went to court to get that water stopped, twice they were refused. They immediately announced they were doing it again. The Cornell ornithologists and TNC formed their own corporation or whatever in April 2004. They got 10 million bucks, one of the authors had a book released the same week as the info. That is a lot of money and perks involved.
If the bird was around what about piles of feces, nests, the one hole they found was probably too small for IBWP, more like the pileated woodpecker, the same with the one litttle strip of bark peeled off, not enough to be conclusive by any means. Wehn biologists go out looking for rare or endangered species that have been sighted, the look for signs of their presence before the look for the species. They had more than a year to do this, and didn't.